‘Crush Time’ For Southern Tier Engineers Story and photo by Staff Sgt. Raymond Drumsta, Joint Force Headquarters WINDSOR – Nestled in the town of Windsor’s quarry just east of Binghamton is the massive stone-crushing project of the 204th Engineer Battalion, New York Army National Guard and the battalion Soldiers who run it. During drill weekends or annual training (AT), the battalion’s Quarry Detachment crushes rocks to make various grades of gravel, most of
A dump truck drops a load of rock into the 204th Engineer Battalion's crushing, screening and washing plant in the Town of Windsor's quarry. Called the “crusher” for short, the plant produces various grades of stone, most of which is used for Windsor's construction projects. Spc. Justin Race of Newark Valley, left, and Sgt. Joe Kellogg, of Greene stand in the crow's nest, where the controls are located.
Summer 2010
which is used for construction in the town of Windsor. It’s a win-win arrangement for Windsor and the Quarry Detachment. “They give us the big rocks, they give us the training area, and we give them the crushed stone,” said Quarry Detachment Commander Capt. Bryan Reed, of Scotia. A dozen Soldiers of the battalion’s 827th Engineer Company are working at the quarry during annual training as well. At the center of the project is the crushing, screening and washing plant, called the “crusher” for short, made up of crushers, conveyors, screens, a washing unit, five diesel engines and three 480-volt generators. The plant takes up an acre of space and stands two stories high in places, according to Reed, it can produce three grades of stone as well as sand. “It’s the heart and soul of the Quarry Detachment,” said Reed. They’ve been running the plant since June 5, and as of Sunday, they’ve produced about 1,500 cubic yards of material, worth between as much as $80,000,” he added. The Quarry Detachment expects to triple that amount during AT to as much as a quarter-million dollar’s worth of stone for Windsor, which relies heavily on the stone to use for roads and drainage ditches, explained Windsor Town Supervisor Randy Williams, who was effusive in his praise for both the project and the Soldiers. The New York Army National Guard has been more than fair with our town, and we have a great working relationship with the Soldiers, he stressed. “I can’t say enough about what they do for us,” said Williams, who has been the town supervisor since 1990. “They do all the crushing. They’re saving us thousands of dollars.” The unit usually conducts annual training in August, but they scheduled it for June this year to meet the town’s need for stone. The Quarry Detachment was established in 2004, and some of the stone was used for reconstruction in the wake of Southern Tier flooding in 2006, Reed said. There are nine quarry units in the Army, Army Reserve and National Guard, but an Army survey showed that only the 204th Engineer Battalion Quarry Detachment uses and maintains their entire crusher regularly, Reed added. “We’re the premiere rock-crushing unit in the Army,” Reed said, adding that he’s willing to use the quarry project to train other units how to use and maintain their crushers. Some Soldiers operate the crusher using a set of controls in a small platform called the crows’s nest, while others use bulldozers, front-end loaders and dump trucks to feed stone into its maw. This amounts to onthe-job, hands-on training for all the detachment Soldiers, or what they call “stick time.” The Quarry Detachment is a highly specialized, stand-alone unit that can be attached to any other unit as needed, said Chief Warrant Officer Russell Corpin, 827th Engineer Company. “They would be doing the same work if they deployed,” he added. “We’re the foundation of any construction project. Right now, we’re training as we fight.” 19